Nocturne

Deluge presents Nocturne, an evening of live experimental sound at the Hammer Museum, staged in conjunction with Arthur Jafa: The White Album

Three artists – Joy Guidry, Speaker Music, and Alima Lee – take up the questions and critiques Arthur Jafa raises in his experimental film The White Album, with performances featuring a mix of live instrumentation, electronics, and spoken word. Through space, light and atmosphere, the program aims to dissolve the boundary between performer and audience, sound and presence, the seen and unseen.

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Deluge is a performance series and curatorial platform that investigates the relationship between sound and space. Centered on ambient, experimental, and avant-garde work by BIPOC artists, the Deluge series positions itself at the intersection of sonic experimentation, spatial inquiry, and cultural critique, using performance as a tool to give shape to new forms of collective experience.

Joy Guidry is a bassoonist, improviser, performance artist, and composer of experimental, daring works that embody a deep love of storytelling. Joy’s music channels her inner child in honor of her ancestors and predecessors. Joy was born in Houston, Texas, into a creative family that has shaped who she is today.  Joy is the founder of Jaid Records, which is a record label that focuses on experimental ambient music, free jazz. Jaid Records was founded in October of 2024, and recently released her third album, Five Prayers. 

Joy has presented her original work at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Park Avenue Armory, Kraftwerk, Whitney Museum for American Art, Hauser & Wirth, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Cafe Oto, The Kitchen, and Redcat, among many other venues. She has been commissioned by The National Sawdust, JACK Quartet, Gaudeamus Festival, and the I&I Foundation. Joy has been featured in festivals like Berlin Atonal, La Biennale di Venezia, London Jazz Festival, Banlieues Bleues festival, A'Larme Festival, Cologne Jazz Week, Dripping Festival, Big Ears Festival, and many more. She is the winner of the 2021 Berlin Prize for Young Artists. She is currently playing on a Heckel Bassoon number 6101.

DeForrest Brown, Jr. is an Alabama-raised, Ex-American rhythmanalyst, writer, musician, and curator. His written works focus on a diagnostic exploration of electronic music through considerations of applied metaphilosophy. Under the name Speaker Music, he has released a series of albums on Planet Mu, culminating in Synoptic Audio (2026). Brown’s debut book Assembling a Black Counter Culture was released on Primary Information in 2022. In 2023, he co-curated HOPE, an international group exhibition presented by Museion Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano-Bozen as the final installment of the TECHNO HUMANITIES trilogy. He has presented work at the Venice Biennale Musica, Somerset House, and Rewire Festival and has also taught courses and lectured widely including Simon Fraser University, Harvard University, Princeton University, and the School for Poetic Computation among others. 

Alima Lee is an anti-disciplinary artist from New York City, a recent MFA graduate in Moving Image at Bard College and is currently based between LA & NYC. Their film, sculpture and sound practice is an ongoing experiment in producing physical evidence from the residue of existence. As a DJ, they have toured clubs, underground warehouses, and other cultural institutions globally while hosting the monthly NTS show Rave Reparations. Their approach to DJing functions as a ritual encounter in a sonic and conversational space where electronic music is treated as a living animist force circulating through bodies, machines, geographies, histories and ecologies.